


Last Goodbye

by BarPurple



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mentions of Cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 14:39:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17727113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: Belle’s traveled to America to find Weaver and carry out Lacey’s last wishes.





	Last Goodbye

Finding Detective Weaver hadn’t been easy. Belle had been hampered by the fact he didn’t appear to have a first name, and everyone in the Hyperion Heights police department looked at her as if they’d seen a ghost. She’d expected that reaction, of course, she was used to it, she was Lacey’s twin after all. Finally, she’d managed to track down Weaver’s old partner, Rogers. He’d been skittish about speaking to her, but at least he hadn’t done the usual and blurt out something like ‘Damn you’re the spitting image of Lacey’, that was never going to get easier to hear.

Rogers listened to what she had to say and shrugged; “The thing about Weaver is he values his privacy.”

Belle swallowed her sigh; “Lacey told me as much, which is why she asked me to go to him, rather than send a lawyer.”

Rogers cocked his head at her and frowned; “Why didn’t you talk to him at the funeral?”

“Weaver was at Lacey’s funeral?”

She listened in shock as he explained how Weaver had taken compassionate level and flew to Australia as soon as he’d gotten word of Lacey’s passing. He’d been right there in the chapel, and never introduced himself, or spoken a word to her. Thinking back Belle had a dim recollection of a man in a dark denim standing at the back of the chapel.

“He came back a few days after the funeral, that’s when we found out he’d quit, cleaned out his desk and left.”

Belle took a shaky breath and tried to keep her tone level; “Since Weaver didn’t take a moment to offer his condolences I’ve had to fly half-way around the damn world to carry out my sister’s last wishes, so how about you make this hell of a trip a tiny bit easier for me and give me his goddamn address?”

Rogers handed over a folded piece of paper; “Weaver was a tough one, but he fell apart when Lacey left.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling. She left me twice.”

-o0o-

It was a four-hour drive from Hyperion Heights to the little coastal town Weaver had relocated to. Belle didn’t take in any of the scenery, she just kept her eyes on the road. When there was a break in the music, she could hear the gentle slosh of the bottle in the back seat. She ignored it, wouldn’t, couldn’t let herself think about what, who was sitting in a box next to that bottle.

-o0o-

Rogers had called ahead to warn him, so he’d spent most of the last few hours keeping watch on the road from his porch. Weaver watched the little rental car pull up to his house. He braced himself, but the shock of seeing someone who looked so like Lacey get out still knock the breath from his lungs. As she got closer, he could see the differences, subtle things in the way she carried herself, little gestures that Lacey would never have made.

He stood up as she reached the steps of his porch; “Miss French.”

“Mr Weaver.”

During the long tense moment that followed Weaver learned the Belle did share some traits with Lacey. He recognized that look of burning anger simmering in her eyes. From Lacey that had meant a yelling match followed by hot, angry make-up sex. From Belle he suspected that the yelling match would be followed by him getting slapped in the face.

“Would you like to come inside?”

“I suppose that would be best.”

Oh yeah, he’d be lucky if a slap was all he got. As soon as she was clear of the door Belle spun on her heel and glared at him.

“You could have saved me a long trip, had you bothered to introduce yourself at the funeral.”

He softly closed the door and moved away from it.

“I was planning to, but after I heard your eulogy I couldn’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

Weaver glanced at her, but quickly looked away; “You want a drink?”

He heard rustling as she reached into the large bag over her shoulder; “Lacey thought you might need a few. She sent you this.”

Belle was holding out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. Weaver took it from her with a frown; “This makes no sense. This is my favourite tipple, but why would she send you here with this when she never told me she was sick?”

“Oh, for fucks sake!”

Weaver jerked, for a second there it was as if Lacey was in the room. As it turned out she was in a way. Belle lifted an urn from her bag and set it on his coffee table, then she sat down on his couch.

“I’ll take that drink, please.”

He bounced the bottle of Johnnie Walker in his hand and picked up two glasses from the shelf. His hands went through the familiar motions of cracking the seal and unscrewing the lid, but his eyes never left the urn, even as he poured two very large measures into the waiting glasses. He handed Belle a glass and was about to take a sip from his own when he paused and reached for a third glass. He filled it and place in in front of the urn.

Belle and he raised their glasses in a silent toast to the dead. The silence lingered for long minutes afterwards until Belle spoke.

“She just arrived, no phone call, just walked into my library with a grin on her face and said ‘wotcher sis’, like it had only been a week since we’d seen each other not three years.

When she told me why she had come home, that she was dying of the same cancer that had taken our mom, to be honest I felt like throttling her. It’s so hard watching a some one you love wither away, and she’d come home so I’d have to watch her fade.”

Belle snorted and took a sip of her drink; “I actually asked her why she hadn’t stayed in America with all of her precious friends.”

“What did she say?”

“That she didn’t know how to get through death with her friends, but she did with me.”

He didn’t know what to say. Lacey had sought the comfort of family in her final days, he could understand that, but by doing so she had placed an impossible burden on her sister. He took a swing of whiskey and sighed; “I wish she’d told me.”

“Would you have stayed with her to the end?”

“Yes.”

Belle reached over for the bottle and topped up their glasses. Weaver was surprised at how much she had drunk, he’d not noticed her keeping pace with him.

“I thought you were just another of her fuck buddies at first.”

He huffed; “Yeah we started that way, but then we were something more. At least I thought we were.”

The bitter sting that Lacey hadn’t told him of her cancer had changed into a dull ache beneath his ribs, a constant companion to the hole in his heart.

“Watching mom die killed our father, did you know that?”

He shook his head. Lacey hadn’t talked much about her parents.

“Yeah. Destroyed him, the man he was died the day of her funeral, the bitter empty man he became walked around for another six years before his heart gave out.”

The whiskey caught the fading light as he rolled the glass between his hands as he considered her words. He had been a jaded and bitter bastard before Lacey had crash-landed in his life. Had she cared enough about him to not want him to watch her die?

“She could have given me the choice.”

He felt Belle shrug; “We lived through what happened to dad after he made the choice to stay. I can understand why she wouldn’t want to risk that happening again.”

He was about to say that not knowing she was ill had pretty well fucked him up anyway, except it hadn’t, not it that way. He was grieving, but he wasn’t self-destructive, he’d quit his job partly because he was tired of it, but mostly because he knew it would be far too easy for him to take his grief out on the scumbags of Hyperion Heights. He couldn’t help but smile at the urn, he could almost see Lacey raising an eyebrow at him and pointing out her way was the right way.

For the first time since they had started talking, he turned his gaze from the urn and onto Belle. The fire had drained from her eyes, replaced with sadness and something else he couldn’t quite place. Whatever it was it set his copper instincts tingling; “Why did she want you to bring her to me?”

“She wants us to scatter her ashes together, into the sea at sunset she said.”

They both looked out of the window, the sun was getting low. Weaver reached for the bottle of whisky and Belle for the urn, as one they rose. He led her through the house to the back door and the little path that wound its way to the shore. It was strange, Belle fell into step with him as easily as Lacey had, but it so different.

They stopped on the edge of the waves. The setting sun had painted the sky in shades of magenta and orange.

“Lacey had a lipstick that colour in her goth phase. The purple not the orange.”

Weaver nodded; “She did her nails in something close to the orange once.”

Belle’s hands were trembling as she offered the urn to Weaver. He tucked the whiskey bottle under his arm and steadied the urn with one hand as he unscrewed the lid with the other. She looked up at him, a question in her eyes. He knew she wanted to know if he wanted to say something.

“Love you Lacey. Safe travels sweetheart.”

It wasn’t much, he’d never been a poet, but it felt right. Together the tipped the urn. The wind caught the ashes and scattered them over receding sea. Belle held the urn loosely by her side as Weaver unscrewed the whiskey bottle and poured a large shot into the water. He offered the bottle to Belle, who took a swig and handed it back to him. As Weaver took a drink Belle shivered.

“She went out on her own terms at the end, but she was very sick. I had to help her.”

Weaver wrapped his arm around her shoulder. He knew now why Lacey had wanted them to do this together. From what he’d seen at the funeral Belle didn’t have many people to help her through this. He’d cut himself off from everyone who might have helped him. Lacey had brought them together so they could support each other.

They’d have to talk at some point, but for now they stood together as the tide ebbed and the colours of the sunset faded from the sky.


End file.
